Memories
by kili-kittencat
Summary: Every evening, at approximately 6 PM, Ryo Bakura does his piano practice. While he plays, Yami no Bakura sits beside him, and listens. And remembers.


**More of le Tendershipping, it's my current obsession. If you hadn't noticed.**

**OH THE ANGST! Also, I don't think I mentioned if they are in a relationship or just good friends. Interpret it how you like.**

**The idea from this came from when I was watching QI, and they were talking about 'madeleine moments', which is where some guy in a book smelled a biscuit and it brought back loads of memories of stuff. I wanted to write something where Yami no Bakura remembers his old life.**

**Rated T because of one swearaging word and some not-very-graphic descriptions of corpses. I can do worse.**

**I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. So don't sue me. I'm just a fangirl who likes children's card games.**

**MEMORIES**

Every evening, at approximately 6 PM, Ryo Bakura does his piano practice. His mother taught him to play when he was a little boy, and he clings to it like a lifeline, one of the few remaining ties to her, and his old life.

While he plays, Yami no Bakura sits beside him, uncharacteristically quiet, and listens.

And remembers.

Ryo starts off playing a soft, gentle melody, pale slender fingers dancing against the keys; and Bakura remembers the songs his mother sang to him when he was a child, thousands of years ago in Ancient Egypt. So impossibly long ago, but he remembers it as if it were only yesterday.

The melody quickens and becomes lively and energetic, and he remembers running across hot desert sands with his childhood friends, laughing merrily at some long forgotten joke. They would all be long dead and buried now, youthful flesh rotted away and devoured by maggots, innocent smiles turned to dust, and nothing to preserve their memory.

The music rises in a crescendo, and modulates into a minor key, with dark, clashing chords. Bakura remembers the bloodshed as his family and friends were slaughtered in cold blood in front of him. He remembers the anguish, how he wanted to rip out his own heart to stop the pain. He remembers sorrow turning to vicious anger, as he swore revenge against the Pharaoh, swore to kill the man who massacred the people he loved. An eye for an eye. A part of Bakura died that day too: his kind heart.

All of a sudden, Bakura's mind is swimming with memories that are not his own, pouring across the mind link. He sees a tiny boy sitting at a piano, experimentally pressing the keys while a woman with the same long white hair looks on in adoration.

He sees the boy again, opposite a little girl who looked a lot like him, on a see-saw at the park, identical white hair streaming in the wind behind them. Both their faces are alight with happiness and laughter as they play together, and Bakura feels his cold heart beginning to melt a little.

The scene changes again. The boy is in the car with his mother and sister, heading down a motorway. They are singing along to some ridiculous song on the radio, and the boy's mother doesn't notice the drunk driver speeding up behind them until it is too late. Bakura knows what is going to happen, but is powerless to help. The out of control vehicle slams into the back of the family's car, the momentum crushing it against a barrier.

Black smoke billows out of the bonnet, which had crumpled on the impact. Yellow tongues of fire are slowly licking their way up the car to the family trapped inside.

The little boy's legs are both broken, crushed behind the passenger seat. He screams for his mother, but she doesn't answer. His sister is slumped, unmoving, in the back seat, her neck bent at a strange angle. The boy reaches for his mother's shoulder, and pulls on her arm. She flops backwards out of the driver's seat, limp as a rag doll. Her face is streaked in blood and perforated with shards of glass from the windscreen, but the worst part is her eyes. Wide open and empty, like brown marbles. The boy starts to sob uncontrollably, choking on the acrid smoke. By the time the ambulance arrives, he is unconscious.

The next day, the boy wakes up alone in a hospital bed, to the news that his mother and sister are gone forever. His legs would heal over time, but his heart was a different matter entirely. Little Ryo would never be the same again.

Bakura feels something trickle down the side of his face. He catches it on his finger and licks it. It tastes salty. Is he crying? He hasn't cried in thousands of years. He looks over at Ryo. Tears are silently cascading over the face of the little boy who lost his mother. With a flash of realisation, Bakura realises that the two of them were more alike than he originally thought. They both lost their family at a young age, and had to grow up quickly and fend for themselves. Ryo has his father, but the bastard is more interested in his work than his only child.

However there is one thing they both have to stop them being completely alone, like a beacon of hope shining through the darkness: each other. And Bakura intends to keep it that way. For as long as they are together, be it one more night or the rest of their lives, he will not let Ryo be taken away from him too.

Wordlessly, he holds Ryo in a tight embrace, protecting him from the future but unable to protect him from the past.

**So how was that?**

**Please review or cute lil' Ryo will cry some more.**

**Seriously, my stories are getting fewer and fewer reviews. If you review I'll give you cookies :3**


End file.
